Top 5 Hubspot Alternatives For Marketing Automation Software

Hubspot’s ‘human’ voice, vast collection of educational materials and networking events have solidified its place as the authority on inbound marketing — and also as one of the most popular marketing automation platforms in the field. 

Hubspot has many draws: its forever free CRM, its integrated sales, marketing and service hubs, and its wide network of support.  But Hubspot might not be the right fit for everyone. 

We will give you a break down of Hubspot — what this tool is, who it is most appropriate for, and what users have to say about this platform. Then, we will give you the same information on 5 of its top competitors. 

These top 5 competitors were chosen based on comparison traffic on TrustRadius. When buyers explore Hubspot, they most frequently compare it to these 5 tools.

Let’s jump in.

Hubspot: Getting to Know a Marketing Automation Favorite

Hubspot offers software solutions for sales teams, marketers and service reps. While Hubspot offers sales and service software, it is most widely reviewed for its marketing automation solution. Hubspot’s marketing automation software has received 1479 reviews and ratings on TrustRadius (overall score of 8.4), which gives us key insights on what users really think about the tool.

The Hubspot marketing automation platform offers features that enable teams to deliver cross-channel inbound campaigns, manage leads and access key reporting and analytics insights. They can be grouped as:

• Email and Online Marketing: Blogging tools, landing pages, email templates, personalized subject lines, A/B testing, personalized content and offers, CTAs, mobile optimization, list segmentation, drip sequences, CMS, SEO
• Lead Management: Lead nurturing, lead scoring, data quality management, automated sales alerts and tasks, ROI on ad campaigns
• Social Media: Social profile integration, scheduling, suggestions for when you should post, social monitoring, respond to comments on posts within Hubspot
• Campaign Management: Cross-channel ads and ROI tracking
• Reporting and Analytics: Standard and customer reports on KPIs, see key metrics across the entire funnel
• Platform and Infrastructure: APIs and integrations with hundreds of partners in their ecosystem. This includes Salesforce, Slack, Shopify, and more.

Hubspot is primarily used by SMBs, with 55% of reviewers representing businesses of this size. While this is the case, 8% of reviewers do come from enterprises. It is most suitable for teams that prioritize inbound marketing and need a tool to support their digital content strategies.

Reviewers say that Hubspot is easy to use and reliable. Based on Hubspot’s ratings, customers particularly appreciate its reporting and analytics capabilities, workflow and automation features and its customer support. There are a ton of educational resources to ensure that you really know how to use the tool.  

“I find the HubSpot tools for landing pages, blogs, CTAs and forms very intuitive and easy to use. I went through the certification programs and they really helped me understand the methods of modern-day marketing and how to use automation tools efficiently. The reporting tools really let us see if what we’re doing is putting us on the path to success or where we might want to adjust our messaging or CTAs.”

~ Erin Harris | Digital Marketing Specialist | Envysion, Inc.

Though Hubspot offers free tools, a small business would realistically start at $30 a month for a starter package. Their professional package, which includes everything in the Starter package plus social media tools, SEO, marketing automation, and campaign-based reporting, starts at $800 a month. The Enterprise package, featuring more advanced capabilities for 10,000 contacts, starts at $3,200 a month. Hubspot’s price point, features, or heavy focus on inbound marketing may not be the right fit for every team. 

Here are the top 5 Hubspot alternatives to explore in order to get a good feel for what will best support your marketing strategy. 

Oracle Eloqua

Oracle Eloqua is a marketing automation platform designed for enterprise B2B companies. This powerful solution focuses on building highly personalized, yet simple to create campaigns across all channels. Oracle Eloqua seeks to unite marketing and sales pursuits with highly integrated lead management.

Features include:

• Email and Online Marketing: Comprehensive targeting and segmentation 
• Lead Management: ABM functionality, digital body language, multiple lead scoring models 
• Campaign Management: Graphical and visual cross-channel campaign management, sales, and marketing alignment 
• Reporting and Analytics: Data management, granular customer profile and behavioral data, real-time reporting
• Platform and Infrastructure: Scalable, over 700 integrations, view contacts, lead scores and activity via a mobile app

This is a great tool for enterprise or mid-sized teams designing highly personalized campaigns — and who have the resources and skilled administrators to implement this tool.

Customers consistently say that Eloqua’s visual campaign canvas and automation capabilities are great. Reviewers also say that the reporting and analytics tools are very powerful. The abundance of integrations makes Eloqua stand out among enterprise-level competitors.

“Eloqua is a wonderful tool if you need a large scale marketing automation platform and have a team with the skill, size, and knowledgebase to implement it properly. It is worth its value if you are using all of the tools/advantages it provides. This really can only be done if you have the resources for multiple power level users as well as at least one full-time administrator.”

~ Courtnee Tomsic | Marketing Automation Manager | UnitedHealth Group

To learn about pricing, contact Oracle Eloqua directly.

Pardot

Salesforce’s Pardot is a marketing automation software designed for B2B businesses. This solution offers vertical offerings for healthcare, life sciences, and financial service industries. 

Pardot features include:

• Email and Online Marketing: Intuitive email builder, automated engagements, autoresponders for landing pages and forms, visual nurturing canvas, personalized messaging, optimized sending  
• Lead Generation and Management: Landing page builder, smart forms, organic and paid search, social posting and profiling, lead nurturing, lead qualifying
• Campaign Management: Marketing and sales alignment, sales-led marketing campaigns approved by a marketing team, real-time alerts
• Reporting and Analytics: ROI reporting, lifecycle reporting, advanced email reporting, cross-channel reporting
• Artificial Intelligence: Einstein lead scoring, behavior scoring, campaign scoring, ABM capabilities
• Platform and Infrastructure: Mobile app, verticals with specific industries in mind, seamless integration with Salesforce

Pardot is a great option for small to midsize B2B companies — especially those who already use Salesforce as their CRM. The native integration between the CRM and Pardot can create a powerful alignment between marketing and sales teams. 

Customers highlight the integration between Salesforce CRM and Pardot as one of the biggest strengths. They also say that it is easy-to-use and can be used by marketers of any skill level.

“If your company uses Salesforce, then Pardot is the best recommendation for you. The integration here is really the strongest and allows for easier notification of inbound leads/prospects.  In the past, we used HubSpot and even though there is a Salesforce integration, we were always finding workarounds to getting the right information to the sales/accounts team.”

~ Verified User | Manager in Marketing | Hospital & Health Care Company,

Pardot pricing is typically segmented into three groups: “growth,” “plus,” and “advanced.” The prices range from $1250 per month to $4,000 per month for up to 10,000 contacts. Contact sales directly for more information on what features these different price points include. 

SharpSpring

SharpSpring is a marketing automation platform uniquely designed for marketing agencies. Marketing agencies can sell the platform to their clients as part of their services or they can use it on behalf of their clients.

This solution features an open API infrastructure, creating a highly customizable platform for marketers. Features include:

• Email and Online Marketing: Personalized messages, behavior-based email, dynamic landing pages, web content, blog builder, flexible templates, pages, and engagement tracking
• Lead Generation and Management: Dynamic forms, visual workflow manager, lead scoring
• Social Media: Scheduling, publishing, monitoring, score social leads, automated trigger workflows
• Reporting and Analytics: ROI reports, custom reports, track online and offline lead sources
• Platform and Infrastructure: Flexible architecture, agencies are able to sell this to their clients as part of their services (setting their own price), built-in CRM, powerful built-in and 3rd party integrations

This product is great for marketing agencies who want a flexible, open API platform that is useful for managing clients in one place. 

Reviewers say that customer support is very helpful and quick — and there are plenty of online support resources. Customers consistently say that the automation workflow builder is intuitive and effective. They also say that is easy to build great emails. 

“This software is amazing for us and our clients helping them distinguish their consumers and how to capture more of them. The customer support is also unreal. They help with any concerns at amazingly considerable times.”

~ Caio Almeida | Brand Strategist | Opto Creative Lab Inc.

SharpSpring has a unique pricing model designed with agencies in mind. Contact SharpSpring directly for more information.

Marketo

Marketo Engage, part of the Adobe Experience Cloud, is a marketing automation platform for midsize and enterprise businesses. This vendor places a large emphasis on lead generation and nurturing. 

Like other marketing automation solutions, this tool enables marketers to perform sophisticated cross-channel campaigns. Features include:

• Email and Online Marketing: Email builder, personalization, landing page builder, automated email campaigns, behavior tracking, mobile optimization
• Lead Generation and Management: AI-powered ABM 
• Social Media: Built-in social media sharing buttons, ROI analytics, personalize social ads
• Campaign Management: Cross-channel campaigns, digital ads, predictive content, A/B testing
• Reporting and Analytics: Unified marketing data, predictive account scoring, multiple attribution models, pre-built and customizable dashboards
• Platform and Infrastructure: Sales and marketing share coordinated engagements

This solution is most appropriate for mid-size and enterprise B2B companies that want more advanced lead scoring and complex campaigns. Marketers will get the most out of this tool when there is a dedicated and knowledgeable administrator of the tool.

Users say that this tool is robust, customizable and great for lead scoring and segmentation. Marketers have access to insightful customer behavior and can create highly personalized messaging. 

“With Marketo’s logic capabilities, it’s possible to build nurture programs that are extremely dynamic and personalized to the user as their data profile changes and they move through the lead funnel.”

~ Emily Thornton | Senior Consultant | ANNUITAS

Contact Marketo directly for a demo and pricing information.

Act-On

Act-On is a marketing automation platform primarily used by a variety of small and midsize businesses in a variety of industries. 

The vendor offers vertical-specific marketing automation for those in the banking, insurance, technology, wealth management, and manufacturing industries. They also have a solution tailored for marketing agencies.

Features include:

• Email and Online Marketing: Personalized email, adaptive sending (optimized time of delivery based on individual contact’s behavior), drag-and-drop email builder, template catalog, A/B testing, transactional sending, EU local sending, drag-and-drop landing page tools
• Lead Generation and Management: AI-driven content recommendation on all channels, SEO audit tool, website prospector (see which companies are on your website and behavior), optimize landing pages, adaptive forms
• Social Media: Scheduling and publishing across accounts, social media analytics, content curation tools, social media advocacy, customer care and response, roles & permissions
• Campaign Management: ABM capabilities
• Reporting and Analytics: Revenue attribution, marketing funnel analytics, Google Adwords, KPIs
• Platform and Infrastructure: Native CRM integrations with major players, such as Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Sugar CRM, and more

Act-On is a great fit for teams at small or midsize businesses that want an intuitive tool that delivers a comprehensive picture of their customers’ activity. 

Customers say the UX is great and customer support is excellent. It is most widely used to support email campaigns and lead generation.

“Act-On is well suited for companies that have a small marketing department. Everything is easily accessible and easy to use. The scheduling of email content can be a large task but with easy flow templates and the ability to schedule a month in advance it makes a daunting task manageable.”

~ Megan Collins | Marketing Director | The Office Connection

Act-on has an ‘Active Contact’ pricing model — meaning you only pay for your active contacts. 

The all-in-one marketing automation platform starts at $900 per month and starts at 2,500 active contacts with 3 marketing users and 50 sales users. Its enterprise level starts at $2,000 a month with the same amount of active contacts, but double the amount of marketing and sales users. 

Contact Act-On for more information.

Choose a Marketing Automation Tool that Supports Your Strategy

Each solution is tailored to fit a different type of marketing strategy, though there is a great deal of overlap between the tools. 

Read more customer reviews on marketing automation software to get a grasp on which tool will best fit your needs.